Eurydice
by Rai Walk
Summary: They could stay.
1. String Snap I

**Eurydice**

* * *

><p><em>Orpheus, the legendary musician, travelled to the Underworld, and by his music softened the hearts of Hades and Persephone, who agreed to allow Eurydice to return with him to earth on one condition: he should walk in front of her and not look back until they both had reached the upper world. He thus set off with Eurydice following, and, in his anxiety, as soon as he reached the upper world, he turned to look at her, forgetting that both needed to be in the upper world, and she vanished for the second time, but now forever.<em>

* * *

><p>It was strange, Allen reflected, that such rituals be allowed by Innocence.<p>

Did they not contradict God himself? Disturbed the natural order of life and death?

And yet. And yet his arm- his Innocence (_What was left of it?_)- merely hummed warmth throughout his body. Warm, pleased, consenting.

It made him shiver in revulsion.

But he needed this.

It wasn't about what he _wanted_, more than anything in the world.

He didn't want this. He didn't want to face those faceless overseers, didn't want to make a deal with them- _didn't want to sing for them_- and didn't want this sort of terrible conditions to make it reality.

He hates Hell. Hell is a terrible, dark place- there are no demons but the ones in his head, the ones that claw at his conscious and weights his spirit down, and the darkness and moaning and begging and screaming tear at his sanity.

There are footsteps behind him, sometimes.

Sometimes.

Sometimes, when he has to pause to let the tormented pass, there is a rough breath on the back of his neck.

He doesn't turn to look.

When, at last, he reaches the doorway, he hesitates.

He could stay. They could stay. They'd be part of the tormented, lamenting and screaming, and begging and crying, but there would be nothing but their own demons.

He begins to turn.

They would want for nothing, they would require nothing, and no one would bother them. They would bother themselves.

And yet...

He freezes. A few feet away from the doorway, gaze latched onto the arch over the path, he's frozen.

And then he remembers a terrible tale- of the music master and his lover, of walking a terrible path, of bargaining with terrible Gods-

And he knows what awaits him- them- if he turns back now.

He closes his eyes.

He didn't want this.

But everyone else needed this.

The hitched breath behind him is released, the footsteps follow him into the light.

...

"Allen, welcome back," Komui greets him somberly, gaze hidden by his glasses.

"We're back," Allen's smile is thin, stretched taut over a particular disappointment with the Black Order itself- and all those who did not (_could not?_) fight back against those orders.

Dogging Allen's steps, Kanda keeps himself carefully blank of all emotion.


	2. Tuning

"I'm not sure where you want to go with this, Bak." Komui tilted his head to the side, the phone held against his shoulder as he distractedly shuffled through the papers on his desk. They were a mess, true, but it was a mess he had made and he could find anything in it.

...except what other people dropped in the middle of it, but, pshh. If something was important, it was unearthed sooner or later. Frankly, Komui wished all the paperwork could just go off itself from the top of the Tower, but, unfortunately, the day the papers started walking by themselves was the day Komui pleaded true insanity.

"I'm quite sure Kanda wouldn't appreciate this kind of meddling," he murmured, "No one has deemed necessary to tell me what was done, Bak, and I don't like going about blindly."

_"It's not like I _can_ tell you, Komui,"_ Bak sounded just the slightest bit tired beneath his usual fluster,_ "But you know how the Church is. Especially the Inspector."_

Komui detachedly watched his hand reflexively clench on a detailed report about the city he'd sent little Allen Walker and Kanda in the former's first mission. Ah, that might be a paper worth keeping... hidden.

_"The only thing you should know above all, Komui,"_ Bak's voice lowered to a murmur,_ "Is that my and Reneé's parents were involved. It's why they died."_

"So you say," Komu grumbled back, forcibly relaxing his hand and stashing the report in the lowest drawer, under all the other papers in it. He'd put it in a proper place later on, out of prying hands he didn't trust. Perhaps Reever would be so kind as to lose it in his room, or Johnny would oblige to misplacing it in the laboratory. "You would do well to give Kanda as much of a warning as you can," he pressed his fingers to his closed eyes, beneath the glasses, "Even if just a... covert... one."

_"...I'll try,"_ Bak offered like some kind of strange olive branch in their strange fighting,_ "But there isn't much I can say that I think he would understand properly. ...sometimes I'm not sure he even _wants_ to understand."_

Komui's lips thinned. This could pose a terrible problem. ...if Bak was right, anyway. He dearly hoped Kanda was smarter than that.

"Very well, I won't meddle," Komui murmured. The_ not too much_ went unspoken. Bak hung up without much fuss after that, and Komui could only breathe in ill-concealed relief. God forbid the man badger him into visiting to lay his eyes on Lenalee.

It was in that kind of strange mood that Reever entered with a few more papers under his arm, silent. Komui received them without a word and shuffled through them, separating a few for more thorough reading. A few others he carelessly threw over his shoulder, Reever determinedly staring at the door on the other side of the room. After Komui sorted the last in its proper place (lost amid the many papers around his desk), Reever left, once again without a word.

Komui smiled thinly. God forbid he truly let those terrible and futile orders pass, as well.


	3. Offkey

"That doesn't sound good," Lavi murmured with a sniffle, rubbing his arms to gather some warmth. It didn't work.

"When does it sound good?" Allen murmured behind him with a sigh. The small settlement (it wasn't even big enough to call it a village) they were passing through was quiet. An eerie silence that suffocated them as they passed and softened their voice until nothing but the wind was left. There were people going about their own business, that was for sure, but they had yet to see children younger than thirteen, and not a soul said a word.

Lavi sighed, giving up on his quest for warmth when he spied an old lady with a small harp in her hands._ A pretty lady with a pretty harp,_ he thought to himself._ I hope we find General Cross soon, or I'll go mad as a rabbit._

It didn't sound funny even in his head.

"Say, Lavi," he turned to face Allen, craning his neck to look at what the boy found so interesting, "Do you ever think about what life would be like without Innocence or the Earl?"

He looked thoughtfully at the pair of boys, he guessed siblings by the way they seemed to quarrel (the sound, if there was any, didn't carry), and pondered. "No," he murmurs back, "I haven't." It wasn't a lie. Bookmen weren't supposed to consider the 'what if's of life. Bookmen recorded the 'what is'.

A girl appeared to sooth the two boys' quarrel. Lavi noted how her eyes matched the children's. Too young to be the mother, he supposed, older sister, then. "...I haven't, either," Allen murmurs.

Lavi smiled thinly. He had never considered life without Innocence because he once lived without knowing about it. Now, knowing it existed, he didn't have time to consider what was different. Truthfully, he knew nothing was different.

There was one thing he could understand about that claim, however. Allen could not imagine living without his hand- he would have no idea what to do should he lose his Innocence in any way.

Lavi gave a prayer in hope that such a thing would not happen. It didn't stop him from knowing that, in this cursed war they fought, Allen would probably die.

How sad.

The girl and the pair of boys were met by an older man- their father, maybe?- and one boy and the girl skipped away. To the delight of the remaining boy, the father raised him to his shoulders, walking off once the child had settled, arms around his father's forehead.

Lavi looked up, into the sky, endless sky. There were only clouds of white. "Do you like lullabies, Allen?" and observing the slow nod, "Do you know any?"

_"Mirror on the wall... Frame the picture,_  
><em>Reflect this kiss to wish us all goodnight..."<em>

A pair of verses, Lavi supposed, were better than nothing. No matter how the words made him shiver.

"Goodnight," he murmured with a tilt of his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Allen's smile.

* * *

><p>-<em>Goodnight<em> by _The Birthday Massacre_-


	4. Screech

"I... I suppose it doesn't go there?" Lenalee stammered at the curious child that had stopped her to ask the most inane questions.

"But I thought flowers always went in their mouths," the pout was disconcerting.

Lenalee had no idea what to make of this child with dark hair and dark eyes that made her uneasy. She almost couldn't see the child's pupils, and that gave the terrible feeling of being stared at in the deepest recesses of her soul, her vices and virtues open for all to see.

_What a terrible child,_she thought, right before a pang of guilt ate away at her bemused smile.

"I need to go now, okay?" she patted the child's the head, nervously flitting away once she received a nod.

If Bookman noticed her disquiet, he said nothing. Lenalee had no time to feel grateful, for the moment she finally felt comfortable on the train compartment was the moment Allen and Lavi entered, leading a timid man between them.

"Yo, panda!" Lavi's grin was huge, "Nice to see you haven't died yet!"

"We'll see who dies first, you brat." The tiny old man swore at his apprentice, and Lenalee was content to giggle for a moment.

The man they introduced to her was... cute. Soft, shy, Aleister Crowley was the kind of person she thought needed someone to care for him. She wondered if Miranda would be a good match, as despite her clumsiness, she was a rather determined woman.

Allen, cute little Allen, with his half-bright, half-soft smile, who made her want to shelter him in her heart, who made her want to be sheltered by him, spared her a tired smile before finding a bed for himself and falling asleep. Lavi followed his example.

"Miss Lenalee?" Crowley's voice called once Bookman had left, claiming to desiring something to eat. "May I ask you a question?"

"Yes?" she blinked at him.

"Why are you fighting... Akuma?" his gaze was curiously honest.

Lenalee wanted to scream at him. What a terrible question to ask. "For my brother," she murmured demurely with a soft smile. "And you?"

Crowley seemed to understand he had asked the worst question possible, if his tight smile was answer enough. "To have a reason."

She felt it was the truth. Why wouldn't it be? He'd had no reason to keep quiet, no reason to smile in the face of danger, no reason to- but that bitter thing wasn't who she was anymore. Maybe if she said it enough times, "For my brother" might become her truth.

The silence drowned them until after Bookman returned, dissipating somewhat only once Lavi was awake and boisterous, burning the shadows with his natural fire.


	5. Discordant

Daisya was dead. Dead, maimed, his Innocence nowhere to be found.

Kanda didn't feel sad. He couldn't. Marie, on the other hand, gently cut the chains and pulled their... friend? down. Kanda didn't quite know.

No one was quite like... like... who was it, again? He didn't know. Someone.

Making the arrangements for Daisya's body to be returned to the Order was time consuming in a way that made his teeth ache from so much grinding.

There was something in the wind that made his head ache. Something...

"Hey, mister..." the little girl's voice cut through the fog in his mind rather sharply, "I think you dropped this."

She held out a silk ribbon, and, more automatically than not, he took it. The girl smiled toothily before running away, the blueish little spikes of hair bobbing with her skipping. Blankly, he looked down at the red ribbon and wondered what to do with it.

"Kanda?" he turned to face Marie, "A finder nearby was kind enough to take over the task. They'll see Daisya back to the Order."

"Good. Then we can move quickly now, before more akuma appear," he stuffed his hands into his pockets, moving away from the wall and beginning a brisk walk. Marie hurried to join him, pressing a hand against his headphones.

"According to some hushed up whispers from HQ," Marie murmured, staring straight ahead, "It wasn't the work of akuma. Komui confirmed that what the Bookmen called 'The Noah Clan' appeared. He thinks they've joined the fight, now."

Kanda grunted. He wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be exactly that. Noah were strong- stronger than most exorcists. (Wouldn't the Order be surprised...)

Marie sighed. "Master will be most devastated by these news."

"Make sure you have some tissues ready with you," he grunted again, "The old man is going to need a few."

He could picture it. Tiedoll, three tissues at once, and a whole lot of tears, snot, and disgusting bawling. Geez.

He sidestepped a cluster of flowers and continued walking.

_(If I look back, I am lost.)_

His eyes had taken to sliding over the flowers that clustered and grew everywhere, the haunting pink that irritated his eyes. He knew not what they meant, and he didn't care.

_(There is someone to find, and yet. And yet.)_

Sometimes he wished he could stop, curl up into himself and sink into the mud, never to rise again... but rise he did.

Yet, he couldn't find her. Everywhere he looked, every corner of the Order he dared violate, she wasn't there. The Order had hidden her so well, hidden her somewhere he couldn't find. Hidden her from his eyes.

He wished he could step on one of those flowers, if only he could grind it into the ground, stain it with dirt.

_(If I look back, I am lost.)_

There was something he wanted. He wanted to find her. And they dangled his wish in front of his face like some sort of carrot for him to follow...

He would not lift a hand if they were to be caught in battle.

_(If I look back, I am lost.)_

* * *

><p><em>-Daenerys' Mantra <em>from _Game of Thrones_-


	6. String Snap II

Allen looked up-up-up, and there was a sky. Cloudless, endlessly blue sky.

Well, either the sky or Kanda's eyes. Back then. Something. Ah, it sort of hurt. To remember properly for the first time, and Allen was so tired.

So tired.

He supposed he shouldn't close his eyes. The darkness spread. Or was it the night falling? There was no difference.

He was dying.

Dying with his heart, dying with his mind, and someone was laughing.

There was something terribly sad about that laughter. So, so sad...

(Her smile had been soft and wide, her brows drawn together for the sadness. How sad it must have been, for her to watch a brother die, another go mad, and never to be free of her shackles.

He cried hard for her, cried and vowed to break those shackles, but. But. The shackles were still there when she stopped breathing.)

Allen blinked, and thought Lenalee shouldn't cry, she should stand up from those ruins and dance, and flee, and fly, like her Innocence allowed her. He couldn't move to comfort her.

He didn't want to.

He didn't want friends. They were changeable, vulnerable to death and anger, and could disappear with a puff of smoke. The akuma were a constant, something that nothing and no one would stop from entering his life.

His purpose was to destroy(free) akuma. He would always walk and always free them. He wanted the stillness of cemeteries, the silence of the dead.

He needed the chaos that fighting akuma brought him. He craved the screaming of an akuma's soul.

He'd never wanted friends, he thought.

But he had them anyway.

He closed his eyes and went to sleep, a lullaby in her voice echoing in his ears.

...

He woke in an infirmary room, lacking his purpose in life.

So he walked.


	7. Echo

The room was small, almost cramped. Dark, with only the glow from the pond creating light.

Road laid on the couch, breathing softly. Her fingertips touched the water.

There was something terrible about having power over Dreams, she thought to herself. Being able to see the dreams, expectations and hopes of people for the future was... something terrible.

Especially when a lot of them (particularly the _tragedies_ the Earl met) wanted, more than anything, the past they couldn't have.

Road brushed her fingers on the water. It rippled.

Her memories of the 14th, of _Nea_, were so... so... strangely melancholic. She remembered laughing with him over silly things. She remembered feeling sad over the most peculiar things, especially when he made circles with logic around them. She remembered feeling angry at those who hurt him. She remembered his fury as he murdered an exorcist that had touched her.

It isn't really much of a wonder why the Earl missed him so terribly, and at the same time, detested anything related to him.

Road smiled to herself. And then she closed her eyes, to dreamdreamdream.

There was nothing else to do, not within this dream of that could go on and on and on infinitely- and still, she'd wake up a moment after going to sleep.

That was the problem with Dreams.

They messed with time.

(How sadsadsad, and how terrible, that the Earl had given Joyd Nea's face. Sadterrible.)

She whispered a lullaby.

The ripple on the water continue throughout the room.

She missed the memories on the pond darkening into a pair of silver eyes, watching her.

How sadsadsad, she thought to herself. How sad.

What a tragedy.

And she smiled and woke up.


	8. Creak

Lavi whistled as he walked through the halls of the Order. All his assignments finished, all his chores done, he was free to do as he wished.

But what could he do with free time? It wasn't a real issue when he and Bookman were on the road, after all, since there was always something to observe.

There wasn't much he could do inside the halls of the Order, however. Nothing that Bookman would approve of, anyway. There was always some sort of burning curiosity in his soul, however, so sometimes he crossed that line.

Bookman didn't always find them out, and Lavi wasn't keen on enlightening him.

"Kanda... why are you so mad?" There was something tragic in Lenalee's voice. Some sad, terrible tragedy that froze Lavi before he could appear in her sight.

"I'm not," there was a warning stiffness in his voice. Lenalee apparently ignored it.

"It's not Allen's fault," she continued stubbornly, "He doesn't want to be a Noah."

"Do I look like I care?" a snarl was forming in those words. Lavi peeked out from a convenient corner.

Kanda had his back to him, but Lavi didn't doubt Kanda knew perfectly well he was there. Lenalee didn't have enough height over Kanda to look over his shoulders to see the redhead.

"...you wouldn't be this mad if you didn't care," Lenalee's voice quivered. Kanda was probably glaring terribly at her- which was surprising, since she was one of the few people that could usually soften his moods.

Lavi looked up, into the darkness of the arched ceiling, and debated with himself for a few moments. (It is stranger than it sounds, debating with himself.)

In the end, an approaching member of the Crows decided for him (and the Bookman in him is silent, disapproving, for some reason.)

"Yooo, Yuu-chan!" Kanda turned to him, a murderous glare flailing him where he stood, and Lenalee stepped out from behind man, wide-eyed, "And how are you guys this loooovely day?" There was something painful in the smile he stretched over his face, as if there were burning pincers holding his lips to the side.

Kanda snorted, leveled them both a glare, and stormed away.

Lenalee opened her mouth to speak, but closed it once the Crow came into her sight.

Lavi took some pity on her. Gently, he laid a hand around her shoulders and guided her to the cafeteria.

...

_"Mirror on the wall... frame the picture,_  
><em>Reflect this kiss to wish us all goodnight..."<em>

Lavi stared into the cracked mirror hung in his room.

Son of a _bitch_.

Did he know?


	9. Choir

It had become true.

Somehow, somewhere along the way, she found that "For my brother" were the truest words she could have said in her life. When had it changed? When had her bitter darkness turned into this... this... cool stillness?

Lenalee stared at the locked door in front of her with wide eyes and heard Komui beg her to be safe.

He couldn't protect her back then, but since he'd taken the position of her superior, he'd been doing his damnedest.

He'd been truly protecting her, balancing loyalty to the Order in front of the higher-ups, care and concern for the exorcists and despair at his own situation, most probably.

How... _selfless_.

And what was she? A bitter thing chained to a destiny she had never wanted. She'd hated God and Innocence for so long it had become ingrained in her- but she hated, _feared_, more the prospect of facing all of it alone.

Her brother had come after her, in this dark place, to hug her, chaining himself willingly. He was able to leave if he wanted, to forget about everything inside (including her), but she wasn't.

She was one of the Order's precious exorcists. And they would never, _ever_, let go of exorcists. (Because if they did, it was their end as well, wasn't it?)

But he never left. Many times she expected to return from a mission and see someone else in her brother's position, to be informed he had left for some family business outside, but...

But...

Was she the only thing he had, as well? Was she the last (and only) person he would give everything for?

...could she return that _sacrifice_?

Leverrier threw the door open and forced her to choose.

...

Sweet darkness.

Sweet, sweet darkness. There is singing beneath her ears. A soft, melodious and _inhuman_ voice shrieks a soft, beautiful hymn.

Ah, the thing she wanted the most... was her freedom. To fly as high as a bird and take her brother, her friends, her world with her.

She wanted the skies.

But she wasn't a bird, was she? She was a butterfly. Beautiful, flitting and soft, easily captured, easily pinned.

She needed speed. More, more, speed.

She needed... wings.

(She has her flying shoes- the girl never stopped dancing in her pretty red shoes, because the shoes danced and danced, but angel's fly with wings, and she was neither.

She flew with her shoes- chained but free, always dancing, always flying.)

...

And then she realized truly- "For my brother, for my world, for my freedom" that was her motto. Maybe she wasn't fully free, but the chains she kept were the ones she wanted.

No one else would be able to chain her any other way.

(She would wait. Wait until the Black Order found her suspicious, wait until they tugged at her chains to "remind her of her duty"... and then she would bring down fury from the skies.)


	10. Cadence

_Ah. Ah_, he thought to himself, absently watching what was happening, as if he was a passenger in his own body. _Ah. It hurts._

Somewhere, he acknowledged that it hurt terribly, and there was nothing he could truly do. That little piece of sanity, was, of course, the little corner of his mind where reason was sleeping, and he vaguely registered everything. It hurt to think, it hurt to feel...

And it hurt to _see_.

Alma looked terrible. In the aquarium, outside the aquarium, he looked terrible anyway. The scars, the dark markings of akuma, whichever, it still made Alma look terrible. Alma, who was the first to smile at him. Alma, who was the first to reach out a hand. Alma, who was the brittle light in the underworld of the Black Order.

Alma, who he snuffed out because...

Because... of what?

Because of a woman he couldn't even name? Because of a memory of a promise? Because... he was... selfish..?

...didn't Alma hate him for that?

(And screaming at the beansprout, stabbing him, blaming him, didn't help, either.)

...

Alma was _crying_. Why? Didn't Alma hate him? Didn't Alma want to kill him?

Didn't Alma... feel betrayed? That he chose that woman over him? Or maybe that was why he cried. But Alma... Alma was...

Alma was his friend. He knew Alma, the boy who shared his fate, the child that could smile despite everything... the child that had given away his own freedom for Kanda's life without a thought, the child that had gone mad with grief, the child that had only wanted...

Wanted...

...

But it wouldn't make any difference, would it.

After all, the forgotten woman, the remembered boy, they were _both_ Alma.

...

He breathed hard as he landed, watching the little pieces of the gate fall, burning away. Alma trembled in his arms. Trembled, and sighed, cried and swore.

But it was Alma. Alma, who he'd once swore to always love; Alma, who he once spent the miserable first year of his life with; Alma, who shared the darkness with him.

Kanda closed his eyes, feeling them burn, and hugged the brittle, dark flesh to himself.

Alma, who he now watched leave the world; Alma, who absolved him of betrayal; and Alma, who he soothed the fear of hiding himself away. He'd seen Alma at his worst, Alma at his best, and it was Alma.

Alma, who his soul belonged to.

He wasn't the man she had fallen for, their weak romance in the despair of an Order that took, took, took, and gave away nothing. Alma wasn't the woman who he'd sworn forever to in a flower field.

They were Yuu and Alma, the two fake little boys created in darkness.

And he was alright with that. Somewhat.

...

When he woke again, Alma had already faded away. He was as human as he could be, fragile in body, but his heart and mind had never been stronger.

He still had one last mission to complete.

Alma would wait for him with a smile, he knew.


	11. String Snap III

There was a white piano with black keys, and it frightened Allen. It made his blood run cold with fear, and a paranoia was born in his mind that _there was someone watching him_.

_Someone knew where he was._

Allen rubbed his arms for warmth, looking around the room. There was a shadow on the window- but it was just his reflection(?) not someone else.

_The eyes of someone entirely different made the hair on the back of his neck rise._

"Who are you?" he whispered to the reflection. But it was a reflection of himself, and it wouldn't answer unless he did. "I am you."

There was no answer, and Allen curled his lips. Cross and the shadow insisted on the piano.

He knew, the moment he touched the keys, that he had lost control over his life. Who had it, he didn't know. Yet.

Eyes burning as he read the music score, Allen vowed to find out who suddenly held the strings of his life- and take them back.

By_ force_, if necessary.

He might be doing what he wanted, but the last thing he desired was to be jerked out of his own path.

Truthfully, Allen never expected to learn how true, black hate felt. He didn't expect to want control over his own life. Or to lack it in the first place.

Lavi was a dangerous bet, but Allen was confident it would work in the end. Because Lavi still had a heart- or some cracked and splintered version of one- and therefore, still somewhat human. Lavi was his best bet.

And Allen hacked and coughed, fought and walked, but his bets were all with Lavi.

...

In the dark, a moment where Kanda, Chaoji, Lenalee and even Cross are out of their way, Lavi snagged his arm and pulled him behind a quaint little white house in the Ark. Lavi wasn't gentle.

But to Allen's surprise, he didn't speak in a language, properly said. It took him a moment to realize, but it was a spell. A spell that made his eyes cross and his teeth grit together, but he did his best to endure.

When he next opened his eyes, despite not remembering when he had closed them, Lavi stood, trapping him against the white wall of the house, eyes wide in residual shock, but his lips were thin and firm with determination.

"Sorry," Allen smiled crookedly at him. He hadn't said the mirror metaphor of the lullaby quite on purpose.

"You realize you're utterly stupid for betting on me, right?" Lavi rasped, eyes growing distant and cold.

"I know," Allen nodded solemnly, "But I'm not asking you to take sides. And I'm not forcing you to do anything."

"That would have been better," Lavi grimaced, "Then I could have claimed I had had no choice."

Allen shrugged. "And then you would have hated me." The redhead had no answer, but Allen could feel his gaze turning sharper and sharper. Something about it told him Lavi was recording him. He raised an eyebrow in inquiry.

Lavi's smirk was out of character- but maybe not for Bookman Jr. "A side-story," he told Allen in a mocking tone, "About a pair of brothers and their utter stupidity. Think you can keep up?"

Allen couldn't quite stop the smile from spreading over his face. "I'll try, _brother_."


	12. Tinkle

If there was one thing Lenalee knew, it was about the kind of manipulative people that were in the Order. There was something dreadfully terrible in the way even Komui seemed to think that an Exorcist's entire existence revolved around opposing the Earl and destroying _akuma_. There were also the higher ups that had drilled into all of them the same thing.

It took a while, of sorts, but Lenalee came to realize that that wasn't the case. At all.

Because every time Lenalee herself was happy, her Innocence sang. Every time. (And now Lenalee could hear it.) When Lenalee was sad, it cried. (And when Lenalee rejected it, it died, becoming cold, hard, black.) When Lenalee accepted it, it her her whole passion, her whole heart, and forged itself anew-

The Dark Boots were her red dancing shoes, and yet.

If Lenalee wanted freedom, the Dark Boots would be her wings. It was frightening how easily she soared through the skies.

But for now, she needed to be here. She needed to be in the Dark Order, she needed to be here to...

To...

...

She had a chance over Kanda in a small, deserted corridor. She waited until the finder at the other end vanished around a corner before speaking softly.

"Kanda... why are you so mad?" She wanted to know, feeling as if there was something she missed and shouldn't have allowed to pass. She needed to know. She needed to plan for the consequences, needed to know how to avert the disaster, but. But.

"I'm not," Kanda's eyes bore into her, and a shiver pressed down her spine. but she needed to persevere. Maybe she could get through Kanda's stubbornness, even if just a little. Just enough. Just so that someone else could continue without needing the initial pull she was tried to give.

"It's not Allen's fault," she continued, somewhat desperate, "He doesn't want to be a Noah." Kanda's eyes narrowed at her, some sort of strange fire and confusion growing in his eyes.

"Do I look like I care?" she could almost see him forcefully stamp down the confusion to snarl defensively, hand instinctively resting on the hilt of his sword. She needed him to see. He was supposed to understand, but. But shutting everything away like this...

"...you wouldn't be this mad if you didn't care," she tried again, hoping her voice didn't sound as terrible as she felt. Kanda's glare only intensified, and she wanted to cry.

She tried to think of another argument to throw at him, tried to think of something else to try to convince him...

"Yooo, Yuu-chan!" Kanda turned to look behind, the glare he had been leveling at her suddenly on the redhead, and Lenalee stepped to the side with a jump, "And how are you guys this loooovely day?" despite looking cheerful, there was something of a warning in Lavi's eyes. Even if she wanted to continue the matter with Kanda, she kept her mouth shut.

Kanda snorted and stormed away from them. The Crow turned the corner behind Lavi and passed by, and Lenalee felt her heart drop into her stomach. She almost didn't realize Lavi guiding her away.

"You shouldn't do that, you know," Lavi told her amiably, "He's not going to crack so soon."

"But I have to try," she told him, "Maybe not all the way, but I need to chip it just a bit."

She couldn't read the glance Lavi gave her. "Allen's probably going to break him," he allowed, "I don't know how much your effort will be useful."

She didn't tell him of the terrible feeling the Dark Boots had been giving her from the moment the Third Exorcists had made their appearance. Something the Order had done (again) was going to make someone miserable. It simply surprised that her wish of not being the next victim ended up including her brother, her friends...

...and the Dark Boots _knew_. The Innocence knew what was in store.

She felt cold. Lavi tried to rub her arms, but his hands were equally cold. He would never be a source of warmth.


	13. Murmur

Noah were a strange kind of being, he knew. They desired the strangest things, found joy and warmth in the most obscene practices. Noah were the black lambs to be offered forward, guardians to Adam, the Millennium Earl, and immortal- not in the rigid concept of unable to die, but in the loose concept of unable to _stay_ dead. Which meant their tastes warped and changed far quicker than any other human, if only because boredom and routine set in so easily. A Noah could appreciate the strangest things, if only to see something utterly _different _from everything they had already seen in the world.

Tyki craved.

What, he didn't know. But he craved something like a never ending ache, a wound festering and he could not find the proper medicine to help it along. Nausea caused by some kind of poison he knew not the origin nor the antidote.

It was surprising to note that none of the others noticed his ailing, but Tyki was also sure it wasn't for lack of attention. It took him barely a month before he realized that they simply had no idea what it meant- even the Earl. Whatever was happening to him, whatever poison was spreading through his body, the Earl had never seen the likes before, which meant he couldn't identify or even notice it.

Tyki doubted he would thus know what the antidote(?) was.

And he was at a loss. The best he could do then, was see what seemed close to satisfy him.

...

The first thing he noted, as it was, was that he craved something to... eat. (And it sounded simply so silly in his head he had had needed a moment to wipe the embarrassed blush that rose on his cheeks.)

Something to swallow, or maybe devour, that would settle his stomach.

Food. Or anything that could be safely ingested. (He really didn't want to try real poisons or some such nonsense, or even the more... dubious... things.)

So onwards he went: Trying every little dish in the most extravagant parties; Fishing and hunting and collecting fruit directly from their sources; Trying the most artificial food man had ever made... but nothing satisfied him.

It didn't come even close.

Salads disgusted him. Fruits and fish satisfied his lips with their softness. Drinks missed taste. Meat was too... gory. Cooked.

Oh frustration, that he'd spent more than months trying food after food and finding nothing to satisfy his crave; only feeling a bloated stomach when he exaggerated.

He craved softness, liquid warmth. But the taste. What was the taste? He could pin it down if only he knew what was the taste he craved.

Taste. Taste. _Taste._

_What is the taste._

...

_And then the Earl gives him a mission._

_There is so much blood._

_He is so thirsty._

_And yet._

_And yet..._

_...he is not completely satisfied._


	14. Backbeat

_Something seeks him. Closer and closer it seeks him, but has yet to come upon his scent. Something that will not allow him to remain unscathed._

...

Lavi woke from a nightmare he could not remember. There was darkness, there was suffocating need, there was... something... crawling upon his skin. He shivered. He didn't mind darkness. He didn't mind lust.

But he could not stand to see green eyes stare back at him, mocking him. Deak was one shard of the mirror, there were so many others he could almost lose count. Forty-nine shards, seven times seven names, so many meanings thrust upon a number he could truly lose count of them.

It was just a number. Allen's lullaby chilled him; Because he must smile and say goodnight to a mirror to receive goodnight from all forty-nine of him. Those who weren't Bookmen usually did not grasp this detail- how _peculiar_that Allen seemed to grasp it with a metaphor, intentional or not.

He took the whole night, with extra care not to wake Bookman, to forge everything he would need, despite there not being a need for a number of things.

But he noted mentally every detail he might need. He wrote a letter from his mother, and tucked it into a small, hidden pocket. He procured a locket and asked the Order's smith to engrave a say on it, dropping it about his neck once done. He sought, sought and sought. As far as Bookman was concerned, those things would only be more of his apprentice's eccentricities that he allowed with wariness. Lavi smiled grimly, and thought he might be getting ahead of himself- planning for the Panda's early death as if he was planning on doing it himself.

_How terrible of Lavi_, Bookman Jr thought to himself.

...

Lavi didn't dwell on it, but he had an inkling of what Allen might be planning. It was cruel of the exorcist to bet on Lavi, especially because Lavi knew he wouldn't come unscathed from the plans Allen was keen on forming and putting in action.

He would most probably end up broken, or in a terrible situation.

He cursed Allen. And wished desperately he hadn't had a choice, so he could back-pedal easily if everything went to hell.

But he couldn't. He had chosen this, hadn't he. He couldn't simply turn away from his own choice. More than cowardly, that would be against everything he was- an insult even to Bookman Jr. He had stuck to his path of Bookman through a long year of hardships, and he wouldn't easily turn his back on it.

Unfortunately, if he died, he wouldn't be able to be even a Bookman. So his first priority would be survival. Second, his choice of being a Bookman- and this he knows is already deeply ingrained. So, third came Allen's schemes. The albino curse his soul, but those were the order of his priorities, and such they would stay.

He would, however, do his best. If it didn't compromise his survival, if it didn't compromise his Bookman duties, so help him, he would do his best.

Then, after everything was ready, he started the side-story the Bookman Jr. promised to thus record- a tale of a pair of brothers.


	15. Rustle

Kanda felt tireless. He walked, walked, walked, and walked even more, and did not tire. He felt thirsty, yes, and he hungered, but he did not tire. His body required sleep, and still his mind urged him to walk. To seek, for there was something afoot. Something was preparing to strike, and he needed to find the beansprout. Before any touched him, before any sought him, he needed to find the stupid albino who had saved Alma (eternal damnation or anything equally terrible not withstanding).

The brat needed some sort of support, and for now, Kanda knew he was the only one who both_ could_ and _would_ offer it. He also suspected he was one of the very, _very_, few that the beansprout would accept support from.

He supposed he should count himself lucky with that.

...

The village was decimated. There was ash, poisonous ash, in the wind. Kanda held his scarf over his nose and mouth, eyeing the silent ruins of the small settlement.

_Akuma_ had passed by. There were only clothes, and ash.

Kanda turned his back and walked away, mind already racing to think of another path.

...

The next town was lively. He kept to the more deserted alleys, years of instincts screaming at him.

Five hours later, and he finally shook the _akuma_ from his tail.

Kanda swiftly arranged his passage to the next town.

...

All this pointed to was simple.

He needed Mugen.

...

Finding someone to follow back to the Order was relatively easy. Finding someone who sympathized with him and wouldn't put him under lock and key and watch at first glance was slightly riskier. But he was nothing if not persistent.

Though Marie cursing his lungs out at him was a surprise. Lenalee cried as she always did- and it warmed his heart far more than it had ever done before. He allowed a pat on her head before she finally released him.

He was, truthfully, completely unsurprised that the beansprout had fled the Order. But he wouldn't kill the watchdog to do so, which meant something more was afoot.

Johnny was planning on following the beansprout and seemed to have something up his sleeve.

Perfect.


	16. String Snap IV

Allen didn't remember parents. Had no idea of siblings, no thought to a mother or a father.

He might've been the child of a full family of farmers, loud and boisterous and happy, believers of the church and maybe afraid for the tiny soul of this child with a deformed arm. They would have turned him over to a tiny religious group who would not have recognized the Innocence at first glance, exorcised a number of times and then given to an orphanage from where he then ran away.

He might've been the child of a lone, rich couple, soft-spoken and generally lovely, who did not know how to deal with a child with a deformed arm, possibly given to doctors to be treated, then for some reason disappeared with. He would end up working for someone with shady eyes and shady motives, and ran away for the streets after being threatened.

Truthfully, Allen remembered very little before the Circus and Mana.

He'd lived in a daze as a tiny child, with strange fogs and stranger thoughts clouding his mind.

To swirl the fog and place a redheaded child in the earliest memories was one of the easiest things to do- a child, an older brother, he would have lost somewhere in the course of his parents giving him away and fleeing from the subsequent caretaker. He'd reached the circus alone.

An older brother he could no longer recall the name, but Allen could picture, could solidify in his memories (false as it would always be) a tiny child with wild red hair and adoring green eyes. It would not make too much of a stretch, since Allen had had brown hair and silver eyes, more believable even if one of them (maybe Allen himself) had been a bastard child of either parent of the couple.

Lavi was a master at accepting and understanding cues, and Allen did not fall far behind.

They would make due.

...

"You're older than me," Allen broke the silence over dinner one particular day. Link paused only momentarily beside him, before resuming whatever he wrote in his notebook.

Lavi threw him a blank look. "Yeah, a couple years, I'd wager. You'd make an adorable little brother, I'd really dote on you."

The redhead's voice was cheerful, and his smile nice, but his eyes maintained their blank stare. Allen acknowledged the sort of life a pair of tiny children would have had. "Dote on me, would you... I think I'd admire you if you liked me that much," Allen quirked a corner of his mouth, "And kick the shit out of anyone that badmouthed you."

Lavi snorted.

Link seemed to write down their conversation as a footnote.

Allen was never more glad for the set up they had made beforehand.

...

A slow day was almost a perfect day.

It was also the day that both Allen and Link overheard a conversation while in the Library.

Those forms he was required to read and sign were terrible, but he ploughed through them as much as he could, a part of his mind considering just ditching Link and finding food to eat instead of starving away.

Allen changed his mind the moment Lavi entered the Library accompanying Johnny. The redhead would never miss the albino and the Inspector, but Johnny apparently did.

"...and aluminium really is a terrible material as conductor for the Finder's shields, just like gold is too malleable," Lavi made appropriate agreeing noises at Johnny's pauses, encouraging him to continue, "Which reminds me, we from the Science Department were in curious the other day, Lavi," Allen straightened just slightly, straining to hear- half of curiosity, half of triumph, for Link's attention was also caught.

"Oh?" Lavi's voice had just the slightest note of apprehension. Allen was sure he was having outrageous fun with everything, "About what?"

"The locket you were wearing over your shirt, you know, the day everyone was sort-of craving coffee, and I think even you were tired. I don't think anyone's seen it before. What is it?"

Lavi was silent for a few moments, weighting his words. "If I settle the betting pool you guys made, will you keep it silent? I already got scolded by the Old Panda for using the locket _at all_, so..."

"Of course! Don't worry, I'll make everyone keep their mouths shut, even if I have to threaten them with an upgraded Komurin!"

"...right." Lavi breathed deeply, "It was from my mother. She, uh, gave it to me when I was really small. Since I was a bastard kid and she wouldn't be able to keep me, she just, y'know, thought it might be a good idea to give me something to hold on to. It's supposed to help me find my little brother."

"...you have a brother?"

"Like I said, keep it quiet and out of the Panda's hearing. _Please_."

Allen looked at Link's intrigued face out of the corner of his and smiled secretively when the Inspector began to jot down rapid writing in his notebook.

Perfect.


	17. Track Switch

He's a shadow.

A shadow, a thought, an idea.

There's something naturally repulsive about this, but he can't quite put a name to it.

There's only the idea, the thought itself.

There are many things he wants, there are many things he can't have. This child was not supposed to be one of them.

Ah, soft kisses of the sun spread over his face, the wind brushing at his cheeks.

This is us, he thinks softly, whisperly, there is a magic by which he is bound and made gentle. He's not changed, but the child has. The child is not a trifle presence.

There is an innocence about the child that he cannot abhor in any manner. There is something about the child, a shared passion, a shared idea, a shared obsession.

The child would not know which gears to move, but he finds himself not quite willing to do away with the child entirely, just. Just wondering which gears the child _would _move.

He's doing it before he even realises it, for the child has gears of his own, and he doesn't... quite... mind them...

...

None of them know what he wants.

They all wonder, of course they do, but they can't even touch the surface of it.

All he does is for-

...

There's a breath.

He's dreaming.

Of something so far forgotten he barely even realises what has happened at first.

The child has gone to sleep.

He opens his eyes to reality.


	18. Finale

Recording something like this requires an interesting skill, Bookman Jr. notes to himself, he must see what is and remember to twist his words just enough, just so the picture is what he wants to be seen. The Bookman suspects what he is doing, but since he keeps the general records mostly clean from the twisted influence, the older man stays silent. The youth is grateful for this.

Lavi is uneasy at dissociating himself so from the others, but truth is... he no longer feels like Bookman Jr. He supposes it is a dangerous state of mind, to be so fractured, but he had had 49 shards before. That one shard gathers substance to itself matters little, as long as the mirror itself is not engulfed in the entirety of the shard.

It is strange to watch the world through the lenses of a being that participates, instead of merely an observer. Something changes, even more than when they took part in the war against the Earl- Lavi is the shard with the most to lose. Bookman Jr. scarcely minds having a measly shard of himself broken, but as long as Lavi's goals do not conflict with their true objective... why not?

...

The world is a burst of colors and sounds and there is something _burning_, _hurting_, _forging_, and _clawing _in his chest.

Lavi falls ill for a whole night, feverish in his room at the Black Order.

...

The Third Exorcists unsettle him terribly, but there is nothing he can do.

They fight beside them, and frighteningly enough, are good assets.

However, Lavi doesn't ask what they do with the souls of the akuma. He remembers the only moment he saw one, long ago, through Allen's sight. He fears what Allen sees.

He doesn't ask Allen either, but when their paths cross in the halls of Headquarters, he remembers to give a comforting pat to Allen's shoulder. Allen generally grips his hand for a tiny moment, a sad, tired smile before walking on, Link at his heels.

Lavi does not let his gaze linger.

The line they walk is thin- between 'brotherly' and 'sodomite'. He makes certain it is just enough concern to be closer than friends.

...

Kanda looks stressed more and more each time their paths cross.

"You're not going to listen to a word I say if I say it now, are you?" he tries anyway. Kanda levels him a glare that makes him shiver. "Allen can't be left alone. Someone needs to keep an eye on him."

"And what," his voice is tightly controlled, high-strung, "do _I _have to do with it?"

Lavi gives him a _look_. "You're in a perfect position. The Order really does believe you're the most loyal out of all of us, maybe only Lenalee before you."

"Of course they think that," the bark of laughter is unexpected. Lavi notes the trace of bitterness, "what do _you _care?"

Lavi smiles. "I'm pretty sure that you'll be the one they ask to kill Allen if he strays a toe," the swordsman snorts, "and seriously? You're gonna let him run about without a careful eye, when he's about to turn into a _Noah_?"

The sharpening of Kanda's eyes is all Lavi needs. It won't end well, no, but it will end better.

...

The fight is terribly one-sided.

Lavi wishes he could have spent more time with his friends... especially Allen.

But he can't.

The Noah are swift. He and Bookman are taken, and Bookman Jr. must step in to keep his master from truly suspecting what he does. Lavi is silent, and he is reminded yet again that fracturing one's self as he did, and still does, might not be the best.

Lavi is starting to think of himself as someone separate from the Bookman Jr.


	19. Tremor

Her red shoes are shiny in a way she's discovered makes other people's heads spin dizzily

She spins and spins around the mad third exorcist, the crazed akuma, and she can't remember its name. Perhaps for the best- right now she cannot afford to think of it as anything but an enemy.

It chafes. And she knows that once the fight ends, she'll remember all of their names and wonder if they're all dead.

...

_Thanks to Kanda Yuu and the Church_, they say, _Allen Walker has become a Noah._

It's a lie. Lenalee knows it's a lie. She ignores the enemies whispering in their ears, seeks the next enemy to tear asunder-

But there aren't any. The Noah vanish.

...

Adrift, her feathers burnt, she keeps her ears open to hear anything about Allen.

Allen, white-washed Allen, who is locked deep within the Order, and only one person can reach him. She has no clearance to speak to Link, and generally never finds him anyway.

She can barely think of something, but truly, the Innocence is content.

She wonders why.

...

It takes her little time to understand her wings are not made of feathers and fire.

They are made of stained glass and rust, colors shifting at their will.

At night, her golem turned off and under her bed, Lenalee silently, carefully curves and molds the glass to shine again. Fire heats it, maybe melts it, but she can always use it to widen the wings. She pieces the fallen shards back in the whole.

Breathes colors in the segments.

Central is focused on Allen, and there is a faint twinge of guilt for using the boy as a distraction, but Lenalee must finish this.

She doesn't know why.

...

The rust is the glue for each glass shard. It's a dizzying red, like her shoes. It glitters, and the shifting colors of the glass are worse in its presence.

Lenalee can only find awe at the beauty.

Carefully, she folds the wings back. The Black Church should not yet know how far she can go.

But Komui should.

...

"What are you doing, brother?" she sets a mug full of coffee on his desk, the last from her 's not his usual mug, and he spares her a curious look before taking a sip.

"Sorting through the usual bureaucracy," the woman appointed as her brother's assistant, the one Lenalee never quite bothered to learn the name of, says with a glint in her eyes.

Komui peers into his mug, light reflecting from his glasses before he turns and smiles wide at Lenalee. "My beautiful sister! What is it you wish of me today? I could never deny you anything!"

The assistant immediately shoos her away, but Lenalee has the answer she needed. And Komui is warned.

Let him break some stones for her.

...

She's not sad that Allen does his best to run. She's happy for him. Her tears when he leaves are of frustration, as she can't follow him.

She stays, until her wings are proper ready.

But Marie has taken to finding her, following her. She wonders why...


	20. Consonance

_Would you hold sand between your fingers, try to keep it from fleeing your grasp?_

_Would you step onto a doomed path still, knowing there is no win at the end?_

_Because you could still breathe. You could still keep yourself afloat, live the last few seconds in the blink of a lazy eye._

_You could simply be._

...

The grit in his eyes disturbs him. Irritated, he presses his fingers against his eyes, forcefully brushing it away. It's like glue, trying to keep one's eyelids stuck closed. Sandman and Reaper working together.

It's taken Johnny long enough to pull his shit together, really, and Kanda dearly hopes the project of a scientist can keep himself focused while the swordsman worries about keeping them both in one piece.

Floating about aimlessly, seeking a white phantom was not how he'd envisioned seeking the beansprout. It feels rather anti-climatic.

The moon is high, this time, when they leave the neglected, ratty place that had housed them for the night.

Kanda remembers that once, what now feels as distant as an entire era, he'd compared the beansprout's hair and eyes with the glow of the moon. The beansprout had been lacking- he'd been pallid, devoid of color and life washed away in a resigned smile, not the subtle-bright glow of the moon.

Kanda hated him.

...

The darkness tugs at him. He cannot properly sleep.

_Mortal_, they whisper in his ear, _mortal like all the others. You fear failing, you fear._

Sleep feels far too close to death for his tastes.

...

"You look as if you'll keel over any second," Johnny comments, eyes running over the dark bruises under Kanda's eyes. The insomnia is taking its toll. "You have to take care of yourself," the tiny scientist continued, his voice not quite scolding... almost careless. "You're human."

_Isn't that frightening_, Kanda can feel the cold shiver forcibly straighten his spine,_ isn't that frightening? You're not a monster anymore, you're not a strange, immortal being, but a human. Frail, gullible, fallible human being..._

The silence falls over the two like both blessing and curse.

Johnny leads them to a bar that night, and insists that Kanda try a few sips.

...

He guesses that was the first time he slept without fear, without voices.

It had one hell of a price, though, to wake the following morning with his head bursting at the seams and feeling stuffing drop out of his ears- wait. That wasn't a proper description. He rests a hand over his eyes. For Alma's sake...

"It's a hangover," Johnny answers his query rather cheerfully. Didn't the man drink more than him? Why wasn't he suffering the same?

...Komu-Vitamin-D2

There was no way he was drinking that zombiefy-ing stuff.

...

Losing the tiny man in the crowd wasn't the worst.

Feeling the clown's gaze on the back of his head was.

Half anger, half relief coats the air. A heavy, heady, illusion-inducing feeling, fairy tales made real, colors swirling and light-headedness covering his conscious-

The clown is back to his performance. (Was it really a man? Looking far too beautiful, like a woman tried for masculine, but made herself too pretty to actually pass as one, or maybe the androgynous feel was purposeful?) But the false fluidity of the performer grates on his instincts.

He wants to hurt the entertainer. To cut away layers and layers and bare the truth for all to see, to take apart fabric and brush the glittering dust from his face.

The clown smiles more. And it only grates on his nerves further and further.

...

And yet.

He'd spent a lifetime seeing Alma in the flowers that polluted his vision- a constant, vibrant beauty that was his world.

The shining white that tore apart the akuma like the sharp points of a moon scarring the night sky was a different kind of beauty.

Allen Walker would forever baffle him, he knew.

All the same, he had a debt and a promise to fulfill.

...

It won't hurt to let the beansprout finish what he wants, though.

Kanda doesn't complain, but time is not something in abundance, especially for them.

He stays silent.


	21. String Snap V

"That's all I wanted to know," he whispers softly. The mirror says nothing back. "I wish I could."

…

Running from the Black Order was simply… devastating. But there was nothing he could do. Nothing to stay.

He could not stay where he was thought of as a hindrance.

Keep walking.

Do not stop.

"I hope it works…"

Lavi had been taken, last he had heard. The Noah sought something from him… and the Bookman, of course. Allen didn't think the Bookman would be in true danger, but Lavi might be…

He needed to create something solid.

He needed a mother. A father. He needed something to cling to, and…

…

It's so easy. A child, a girl, so kind, and it is easy to find help from her. An angel, she calls him. He doesn't want to undo the illusion. She's so soft. So tiny. She gives him a few coins, just enough. Just for a hat.

And then he cheats at cards. He cheats, and cheats, and cheats… until he can find materials. He'll disguise himself soon enough.

He needs to irritate someone important first. Someone who'll scare everyone into being silent. Someone… like that gang boss over there. Who'll get very irritated the moment Allen lets something slip.

…

Kanda and Johnny finding him was _not_ part of the plan. Allen wishes terribly he could be angry, but truthfully, he's only scared they'll take him back. Back to Apocryphos.

He doesn't want to lose himself. He doesn't want to cease to be. He wants to be with those he cares about, those who have made him into who he is now. He wants to _be_ what they made him into. He wants for all this to end, and by the end, be able to look his friends in the eye and smile.

If they take him back now…

…

_"You know… going on like this isn't going to help you."_

_"What do you suggest, then?"_

_"Why not try an advantage? Trust someone else. Your first backup is compromised. Don't waste your knowledge."_

…

Neither of them had realized he was the clown, not until the _akuma_ had given him away.

"Kanda…" he whispers when Johnny is asleep between them, "I have a plan. But I don't think you're going to like it."

"I don't think I ever like your plans, beansprout. Out with it."


End file.
